On Friday, Twitter owner Elon Musk released the “Twitter Files,” a series of internal communications, through journalist Matt Taibbi. The previously unseen files appear to show Twitter employees cooperating with efforts to suppress the New York Post’s story on Hunter Biden’s laptop in the fall of 2020.
The focal point of the communications was the Post story, which claimed the paper had access to Hunter Biden’s personal laptop, and could connect Pres. Joe Biden and his son to dubious dealings with a Ukrainian energy company.
Pre-Musk Twitter was clearly biased against Republicans, frequently bowing to requests from the Biden campaign to take down tweets and accounts it didn’t like. The suppression of the Hunter Biden story, which strongly affected the 2020 election, was particularly egregious, considering it proved to be legitimate. This might be just the tip of the iceberg considering Musk’s promise of more releases soon.
These communications simply reinforce what we already knew about Twitter’s difficult decision to limit distribution of the laptop story. Beyond the laptop story, there’s no proof Twitter’s content moderation favored Democrats or Republicans, who each made numerous requests to the platform. Despite claims from both Musk and Republicans, there was no evidence the FBI ever leaned on Twitter. Musk’s big reveal was a big bust.